Pain for a lost sister
by halli-halliwell
Summary: Set after Prue's death. Piper is finding it difficult to cope, Paige can't seem to fit in and Phoebe wants to get a job. Leo becomes very worried about his wife's behavior.
1. Numb

Disclaimer: I don't own Charmed or any thing to do with it.

**Numb**

She sat in the kitchen, staring blankly at the computer screen. She knew she should be feeling some thing. She just had no idea what that feeling should be.

Every one kept telling her it was alright to be angry, upset and cry.

But none of them knew what she was going through.

She had lost her big sister, she knew that hurt, well it had done at first, but the pain had dulled and was non existent now, she just couldn't feel any thing any more. Pain, love, hurt, happiness, sadness, betrayal, excitement, disappointment. It was all the same thing to her recently. She couldn't even feel shook any more, and god knows she should be feeling some of that right about now.

Her entire life had become a blur recently, stumbling from one day to the next in a haze of complete numbness and unemotional living.

She was meant to be working on the accounts now, so her club wouldn't go under, but she couldn't find enough energy to look into the screen and concentrate to read the figurers off.

That was why she had spent the past three hours sat at the computer motionless.

Part off her had always said to get an accountant to deal with the accounts, but they had always been a challenge to her and she said when she opened the club that she was in it for the long hall, and that included the accounts, even down to cleaning the millionth dirty glass.

Now it was too much effort for her even to think about hiring an accountant. Even if she could really use one.

Every thing took to much effort, a smile was imposable, and movement seemed even more improbable at this precise moment in time.

Her life was falling apart.

No. That was wrong. Her life had already fallen apart. It had when Prue had been killed. That terrible day, and her life had gone. Just like that. Along with Prue.

No one could change that fact, no matter how much they wanted to.

She had tried every thing after Prue had been. Killed every spell, every ritual she knew, and some things she knew had been total long shots and didn't have a hope in hell of working.

All they had done was brought her, Paige, into her life. There was no way she could handle that so she just shut her self down a little bit, functioned on auto-pilot.

She seamed to be doing that more and more recently, just switch to auto-pilot, some times with out even knowing it. Even a simple task, making a vanquishing potion, any thing and every thing would do it.

Evil had taken her big sister, who had been there for her, her entire life, and she hadn't been able to do a thing about it.

Now she was the oldest sister, the one with all the responsibility. She couldn't take it. She couldn't tell every one else what to do when she was felling like this.

The computer's fan cut into her thoughts.

Not that it made much difference, her body was too tired to move, her eyes too weak to look up, her mind too escorted to do a thing.

She couldn't remember the last time she'd cried, let alone smiled.

It hadn't been like this when Grams died. She felt lost. She didn't feel any thing. It wasn't how it was supposed to be. She was meant to be feeling some thing, any thing. Not nothing.

Part of her thought she should feel guilty for feeling nothing. But she had closed up that part of her long ago.

Her stomach rumbled.

What had she eaten for lunch? Had she had lunch? Breakfast? When was the last time she had actually eaten something?

She didn't know, and she didn't care.

Every event of the past few days had slipped from her memory.

She knew she hadn't spoken to her family recently and hadn't slept in longer.

When had she last spoken? When was the last time she had slept?

It didn't mater that she couldn't remember, she didn't need to. It was important.

Life had become a chore, breathing was hard enough to do, letting air into her system took too much effort. It was like some one had set her chest in concrete. Each breath she took there was more of a weight to lift.

Leo was worried about his wife.

Only he seamed to be noticing what she was going through.

At first he had jus thought he was being paranoid, looking for a problem where there wasn't one. But she had spoken to him, Phoebe or any one else for that matter for such a long time and he was beginning to find it hard to remember what her presents felt like next to him in bed at night.

She hadn't let him hold her for weeks now, not since Prue's funeral when she sobbed into him. If he went to hug her she would move away, or shrug him off, like his touch hurt her.

He couldn't bear to look at her recently, to see her like she was.

Phoebe had expressed worries about her early on, but he had managed to assure her what Piper was doing was a normal part of grieving. Now he wasn't so sure. There was nothing normal about what Piper doing was normal. The way she was behaving. It wasn't her.

She was letting things at the club slip, she wasn't paying the bills, she wasn't eating or sleeping, she wasn't even talking to any one.

He missed her smile, her organisation, her lust for life.

He sat in the living room with his head in his hands, wishing he could get through to her, help her with what ever she was going through.

"Hey Leo!" Paige, the latest addition to the Halliwell house hold bounded in to the room. "Can I ask you a question?"

"Sure," He straightened up slightly. "My train of thoughts wasn't going any where productive any way. I could use the distraction. What's up?"

"There's just some thing bothering me." She said. "I'm probably just being stupid and insecure. But I just feel like Piper and Phoebe don't want me here. Do they want me here? No hang on. That wasn't my question. Do you want me here?"

"I think you need to be with your sisters for all of your sakes. But it is a little strange, if we were a normal non magical family, I'm sure as your brother-in-law I wouldn't want you here, seeing as you only just came into your sisters' lives. As your white lighter though I have to say I'd rather you were here than any where else."

"Do you think they want me here? I need an impersonal view."

"I think that Phoebe really wants you here. You are so much like her and she enjoys your company, and Piper. Well I don't think Piper knows what's going on in her own head any more, let alone what she wants."

"I still don't know, I just feel out of place here, like I don't belong, I'll never be able to live up to Prue. She was the best. That's what Piper told me."

"She was good at what she did." Phoebe said. "And before any one asks I do not want talk about my job interview. I just want to forget it and move on to the next miserable failure."

"So I take it from that you didn't get the job." Paige said. "Bad luck."

"I did not get the job." Phoebe confirmed. "They gave it to a girl five years younger than me with half my qualifications. Where's Piper? I need some good old fashioned tea and sympathy."

"In the kitchen." Leo said. "But you're not going to get any thing out of her."

"What's she doing?" Phoebe asked. "Cooking? Piper always cooks in a crisis."

"Staring into nothing," He said. "Again."

_a/n:_

_so what do you think?_

_This is just some thing mad I came up with because I was board sitting for my little sister._

_I want to put some romance between Piper and Leo in soon._

_Let me know what you think and where this should go._


	2. Scilence and Memories

Disclaimer: I don't own Charmed or any thing to do with it.

_Thanks to everyone who has reviewed._

_Loved all of them._

_So it took me a while to think up a name for this chapter, got one now, so here you go._

**Silence and Memories**

The rest of the Halliwell family were distort with worry over Piper.

All of last night Leo, Phoebe and Paige had sat up thinking of ways they might be able to help her, and had come up with nothing that would ever work.

"May be if one of you talked to her." Paige suggested for the fortieth time in the last hour.

"It wouldn't work." Phoebe said. "She isn't talking t us."

"She just with drawn Paige," Leo said patiently. "We could say any thing to her and she wouldn't react. She shut her self off from the rest of the world and that includes us."

"You're her husband," Paige persisted. "She needs you at a time like this. You're meant to support her."

"Paige," Phoebe was tired of having this same argument over and over and over and over….. "We can't help her if she won't let her help us. Piper has always been a fighter; she's never given up on any thing in her entire life. If she doesn't want to talk to us she won't."

"Her husband and sister shouldn't be giving up on her like this." Paige found their defeatist attitude irritating. "They should be trying to get through to her. Even if she doesn't want them to."

"What do you want me to do?" Leo exploded with rage. "My wife doesn't want me near her. I go to hold her and she moves away. I try to talk to her and she doesn't talk back. I don't know if she's listening t what I have to say to her any more. She won't respond to any thing any of us say. The only thing I can think of doing now is holding her in my arms and not letting her go. None of us know how to make it alright for her. I can't just grab her and force to be close to me, or Phoebe or any of us."

"Well may be you should." Paige shoot back.

"We've lost our big sister." Phoebe said. "You've been an only child all your life. You don't understand how we're feeling right now, and you never will when it comes to Prue. That's no t me being mean Paige, because you are getting on well with me and if we ever get back the Piper I love she will too."

"I lost both my parents at the same time." Paige wanted to win back some pride. "It was hard, I know I'll never understand the relationship you had with Prue, but I know how it feels to lose someone you love. I think one of you two should talk to Piper, like you normally would. It only made me hurt more when people were nice to me. I hated the fact they were walking around on egg shells. May be Piper's feeling the same way. Say if Phoebe was just to go in to the kitchen and spill her guts about the interview, it might reach Piper or some thing."

"Or it could make things ten times worse." Leo said. "I'll try to persuade her to get her head down."

"Well we have to do some thing soon." Paige said. "Before she goes past the point of no return. At the rate she's going she could be in hospital ill and we could be arranging another funeral."

"I can't go through all that again." Phoebe said. "It would kill me if I lost Piper."

"Then we have got to do some thing before it's too late." Paige was glad they were coming around to her way of thinking. "You and Leo give it one more try each and then I'm calling in a favour and some specialist help."

In the kitchen Piper had move to sit at the wooden table.

She was so used to sitting their in the mornings with her family, Leo next to her and Prue and Phoebe darting around the kitchen, bickering as usual.

She had been forced to summon what little energy she had to move away from the computer as the intense glare had made her eyes source and weepy.

It was a strange feeling; she had felt the presence of tears, the salty water in her eyes, but none of the strong emotion that always accompanied it. She'd always felt strong emotions when she cried. But not any more.

Some thing caught her eye across the room. It must have been good to snap her momentarily out of her gaze.

Last time some thing like that had happened she had been holding a sharp knife.

The blade had entered her flesh when some thing caught her attention, she had no idea what.

The first thing she had known about the cut was when Phoebe had screamed at her about it.

She vaguely remembered looking down at the wound and seeing bold oozing out from the deep cut. Inwardly a part of her was screaming at her to do some thing about it, cover it with some thing, apply some pressure, or run it under some cold water.

But all she had done was stair down at her had in disbelief. She knew she should be feeling a searing pain from this wound, her skin should have been screaming out at her in pain, it should have caused a lightening quick reaction, but there was nothing there. There should have been.

Leo must have healed her because as she stared down at the spot where the wound should be the skin was in perfect condition. Or had it happened that long ago a wound like that could heal to leave no trace?

It could have. She had lost all concept of time.

She pulled her unwilling body over to the sink to get a glass of water.

It was……..how many days since Prue died……….Weeks…..Months……..Years…… ……...Longer.

She didn't know. Didn't care much either.

The memory of old emotion was being to slip away from her, every familiar sensation. Like how she felt every time she saw Leo.

The feeling of missing a couple of heart beats.

Some thing caught her eye aging.

On the computer screen. The screen saver.

One Prue had set up. With all the photographs she'd had printed in 415 and some of her sisters too.

A silent stream of memories began to flood back to her as she felt a tingle of pain in her chest.

Tears began to flow down her cheeks.

Was this sadness and pain she was feeling again?


	3. Heart to Heart

Disclaimer: I don't own Charmed or any thing to do with it.

_Loving all the reviews, keep them coming._

_Sorry it took me so long to post this chapter but I've been working a lot._

_Getting more inspiration for baby baby._

**Heart to Heart**

"It's hard, isn't it?" Phoebe asked Piper absently. "Losing a sister."

She already knew there would be no response.

"Do you want some tea?"

Piper shook her head slightly.

Phoebe smiled; she had walked into the kitchen ten minuets ago to find Piper at the end of a weepy out burst, and now she was giving her some sighs of understanding or recondition, even if she wasn't speaking.

"We're all very worried about you sis. Paige wants you to go see some therapist at social services. You know, I went for a job interview yesterday. It was horrible, no worse than that, it was humiliating. There was this other girl, a dumb blond type, and five or so years younger than me, with half the qualifications I have, you know the type, overly perky. Well the guy who was doing the hiring was drawling over her, and surprise, surprise he gave her the job instead of me. I despise men who want woman in the office as a nice piece of eye candy. Don't you?"

There was a small flash of recognition in Piper's eyes, but nothing more.

"Who am I kidding here?" Phoebe sat down at the kitchen table. "No one's ever going to want to give me a job. I mean who wants to have a girl with a track record like mine, I've had more jobs than hot meals, and come on, I was a psychic for a sleazy hotel not so long ago." She sighed and hung her head. "You're not going to talk to me. Are you? I miss you Piper." She confessed. "It's worse than with Prue, because at least I know she's at peace but you, your not. I can't stand to see you like this."

"I don't want to feel like I do at the minuet Phoebs." Piper said quietly. "But I don't know how else I should feel."

"We lost Prue," Phoebe said. "We should feel angry."

"But I'm not angry, I can't even be pissed that _they _let her die any more."

"It really hurts." Phoebe whispered. "How are we supposed to go on?"

"I don't remember how it feels to hurt, over this, not over anything. All I can think is that we're not meant to have lost her. Not now. Because if we were meant to of lost her I should feel some thing. Surely, like when I cut my self. I didn't feel a thing. How long ago was that?"

"Five days. Don't you remember? Leo healed you."

"Not really. It was like I was like a dream or some thing. I felt like I was in some kind of haze. I couldn't even remember Leo's touch."

"She talking again," Phoebe told Leo and Paige when she walked back into the living room. "Sort of. It's all a bit random and incoherent."

"At least it's a start," Leo said. "I'll go talk to her."

"Don't," Phoebe said quickly. "She just fell asleep. You should let her sleep for a while."

"I still think we should get her to see a professional." Paige said.

"Paige it is sweet of you and all to offer to do that for us, for Piper." Phoebe said gently, she knew from experience the rejection of ideas hurt when you were the youngest sister. "But we want to help Piper our selves, and we will."

"Any way," Leo countered. "Therapists are a whole can of worms we shouldn't even think about opening up. There is so much you can't tell them. If the power of three is exposed to one of them. Who knows what they might do…."

"It was only a suggestion." Paige said down hearted.

"It was a good idea in principle." Phoebe offered. "We've just been doing this a whole lot longer than you. It isn't your fault."

"I'm just going to go sit with her for a while." Leo said.

"Don't wake her." Phoebe said. "She needs to get some rest."

"I know." He said. "I just want to sit up with her for a while. You two should go get some sleep. Unless you have to go to work."

"Ha, ha, ha." Phoebe said. "Very funny Leo. I'm splitting my sides here. You know I didn't get the job. You don't have to rub it in."

"Sorry. I was actually talking to Paige. Don't you have to be at social services about an hour ago?"

"Ah, crap!" Paige glared at her brother-in-law. "Why didn't you point that out an hour ago?"

Leo shrugged.

"I am so late, and so fired."

"Doctor Phoebe has it all under control. I see you have the flu, Miss Matthews; you don't want to spread it. You can't passably go into work today. I'll call your boss."

"Thanks so much sis, you are a god send." Paige gushed.

"Tell that to some one who'll give me a job." Phoebe said.

"You do a very important job." Leo said.

"Start a pep talk now," Phoebe said with a tight smile. "And the elders will lose one white lighter and my sister and her husband won't make it to their first anniversary."

"Speaking of my wife." Leo said. "I'm going to go sit with her now."


	4. A husband's love

Disclaimer: I don't own Charmed or any thing to do with it.

**A Husband's Love**

Leo sat at the kitchen table watching his wife.

He was more than worried about her now, he'd been watching over Piper her entire life and he'd never seen her do this before.

Piper was slumped on the kitchen table asleep.

It wasn't something Piper did; she only ever slept in bed, right from when she had been little she never even slept in the car. Now she was grown up she didn't even fall asleep on the couch if she was ill.

It scared Leo to see her this way.

He usually loved to watch her sleep, and he was glad that she was sleeping now, but this some how seamed wrong and unnatural for her to sleep this way.

He couldn't really image what she was going through, since Prue died. At first he had told him self he did. But he didn't really. Yes, he was a white lighter and he had helped people deal with loss before, but never people as close as Prue and Piper had been. They were closer than normal sisters, they had had to be, they were the Charmed Ones, and even before they'd received their powers they were close though. The closet, all the time they were growing up together.

He'd experienced loss since he became a white lighter, but nothing like she was going through. He'd only lost the odd charge. She'd lost her sister. Even when he was alive he hadn't known loss, before he was killed in world war two and became a white lighter. All his family out lived him, his wife at the time, both his parents, even his grandparents. They'd all still been alive when he died. He had only ever been to one funeral, for a guy who had lived on their street when he was seven. In the field he'd been lucky too, the two guys he was closest to had been killed just before him and he hadn't suffered from losing them.

As a white lighter he knew how to guide people ease their pain and he'd been able to help Phoebe deal with losing Prue. But it was different when it was his own wife.

Sure he could hold her and tell her that everything was going to be okay, when she would let him.

But he felt he couldn't help her because he couldn't relate to the pain she was going through. He knew his love for her was clouding his judgment, but it was impossible for him to focus on any thing but her pain when he was around her.

It was so difficult for him not being able to make it go away.

If this was one of his other charges, not Piper his wife, he would have been able to help, some how. Sit down and talk it out with them, told them to focus on the good times they'd had together, happy memories.

But when he started to talk with Piper and she was dismissive towards him, like any wife would be to a husband when they were suffering from such a great loss in their life, he just felt her pain and loss even more, and knew as her husband that she wanted to be alone, and he would let her.

When she didn't talk, even though his white lighter instincts told him to get her to talk, his instincts as a loving husband was not to pursuer her into doing any thing she didn't want to do. He would never feel right about it if he did.

He was her white lighter _and_ her husband, which meant he had more of a responsibility to protect her than he did to his other charges, it was his job.

For some reason he couldn't stop him self from reaching out and stroking the hair from her face.

Even as he did it he knew he shouldn't be doing it. Phoebe was going to murder him if he woke her. Piper need all the rest she could get at the minute, because just getting through a day off doing nothing seamed to be near imposable for her at this point in time and use up all the energy she had.

Her hair was very greasy to touch, as she hadn't washed it days, but he loved the feel of her skin under his fingers. It had been like a life time since he had felt her smooth skin under his fingers.

He allowed him self to caress her skin for a moment.

She stirred at his soft touch and began to wake.

Piper woke up to find her self in the kitchen.

She would never let her self fall asleep in the kitchen.

Her head hurt and her neck aced.

Her eyes slowly came into focus and she saw Leo sat next to her looking worried.

"Hey." He said gently, not expecting her to respond to him. "How are you feeling?"

She leaned back into the chair and watched him watching her.

Her head lolled against her shoulder and her eyes were watery.

"Phoebe's going to kill me when she finds out I woke you up." He said absently.

"She won't." Piper said quietly hugging her self. "She'd never take you away from me."

Leo didn't know what to say to her now. He'd never actually expected her to talk to him.

"Do you want any thing?"

She shook her head a little.

"Want to talk about it?"

She shook her head again.

He moved nearer to her and knelt down by her side, taking one of her hands.

She looked down at her hand in his and stared at the floor boards.

"I'm sorry you're having to go through all this." He said softly.

For a moment she considered going on the defensive, pulling her had away from him and moving away from him. But every last bit of energy seamed to have been drained from her body and it would take too muck effort.

Instead she looked up and found his loving blue eyes sparkling with concern.

She let her self slip down off the chair and into his protective arms and started to cry, pressing her face into his shirt.

_a/n_

_sorry it has taken me so long to update this story I've had to work and haven't been able to sit and write a chapter from scratch._

_It's taken me a couple of hours to get this chapter finished due to the cat on my lap. He says "mow" to you all by the way._

_I'll get some more up soon._


	5. A sister's rage

Disclaimer: I don't own Charmed or any thing to do with it.

**A sister's rage**

"The woman was a demon!" Phoebe yelled in Paige's face blind from range.

"Phoebe she didn't give you a job. That does not make her a demon." Paige said calmly. "She just wasn't very nice."

"She was a demon." Phoebe didn't care if she was wrong.

It felt so good to yell.

After Leo had gone to sit with Piper the phone had rung and Gil, Prue's old boss had managed to get her a job interview with another 415 editor.

Phoebe had broken numerous speed regulations as she had spent to the interview.

The woman, not much older than 30 with glasses that had bugged Phoebe the entire way through the interview as the emphasised her beady little eyes.

Her demonic beady eyes.

Well this woman had gone and given her job to a boy, a hunky boy, fresh out of high school with no qualifications.

Now Phoebe was pissed at the whole world and her little sister was getting hit full on with most of her rage.

"The world can save it self from the next super powerful evil being that wants to rip a hole in it for all I care!" Phoebe ranted mindlessly. "Because it has shown me no bloody respect so the rest of humanity can go fringing deal."

"Phoebe how did we get from you letting an apocalypse happen from you not getting a job as a crummy office assistant?" Paige asked.

"That is my way of saying life is at its most suckyest ever." Phoebe stormed into the kitchen at boiling point.

"Phoebe maybe you should calm down a little." Paige suggested.

"I will do no such thing!" Phoebe had seen red.

"What's wrong with her?" Leo asked.

Paige took a moment to observe the seen the kitchen.

Leo was sat on the unit and Piper, in her puffy eyed state was pottering around the kitchen close to her husband and there was a yummy smell coming from the oven.

"Is she cooking?" Paige asked.

Leo nodded, slipping down from the unit to wrap his arms tightly around Piper.

She seamed to be a little brighter.

She wasn't exactly smiling or happy.

She seamed sad.

But that was a good sigh that meant she was feeling some thing.

Phoebe, still unbelievably pissed with the mortal world didn't seam concerned with this small victory and suckled out of the house with Paige's car keys.

"Oh well done sweetie!" Paige hugged her big sister; although she wasn't entity sure it was the right thing to do as she hardly knew the woman. "When Phoebe brings my car back in one piece she is going to be so pleased. We've all been worried sick about you."

Piper leaned back into Leo's arms, gripping hold of his sleeve a little insecure but she still managed to give Paige a weak smile, not one on that was heart felt and say a few kind words.

"Thanks," She murmured. "I'm making coffee cake. Prue's favourite if you want to try some in a bit."

"Yes please!" Paige didn't know if it was right for her to be so bright. Piper was talking about her dead sister. But she didn't know what else to do apart from smile. "It smells delicious a little like my mom's baking but minus all the smoke and burning. Like before she went near the stove. There was a reason she married a fire man."

Leo tightened his grip around Piper's waist.

He knew when things settled down a little more she and Paige were going to get on.

But for now he was going to help her through each day.

His wife was usually a very independent woman, but the fact she was letting him hold her and leaning into him for support didn't bother him too much.

He'd much rather have a clingy wife than one who was constantly distant and in pain by her self.

Phoebe drove down the freeway at god knows how much above the speed limit.

It was going to turn her day around no matter what.

She had done this a lot when she first moved back to San Francisco, drive to any where.

Blue lights flashed behind her and she was forced to pull over.

She killed the engine and let her head ret on the steering wheal her day had just gotten a whole lot worse.


	6. Actions have consequences

Disclaimer: I don't own Charmed or any thing to do with it.

**Actions have consequences**

Leo sighed watching Piper sat on the sofa with Paige, as he waited for Darryl to return to the phone.

Piper was starting to deal with losing Prue and now Phoebe had gone and gotten her self arrested for speeding among other stuff. This was going to devastate Piper and Leo knew he wouldn't be able to do any thing for her if she shut him out all over again.

"No," Darryl's voice brought him back to earth. "Leo the judge is refusing to give her bale. I can't just make all this go away. You don't think this is demonic do you?"

"I don't know what to think any more Darryl."

"Do you think I should be prepared for some sort of attack?"

"By the sounds of this I think your biggest problem is going to be controlling Phoebe. Is this all about a speeding ticket?"

"Oh it's much more than that Leo. Believe me, you don't want to know. Would it be so bad for the world if one of the Charmed Ones ended up in jail?"

"Is it that bad?"

"Looks that way."

"What on earth is wrong with Phoebe?"

"If you ever find out what was going through her mind I would love to know and so would the officers in ER I am sure."

"She's put some of your guys in hospital?"

"Yhea, that's about the size. I told you that you didn't want to know."

"Is there any thing we can do?"

"Not at the minuet but I'll give you a call if any thing happens of Phoebe cools off enough to talk."

"How likely is that to happen?"

"Not very."

"This is going to make Piper's day."

"How's she holding up?"

"She hasn't been doing well. She…….. I don't know what to say. I'm just scared this is going to make her worse, she's been bad but she improved so much today. I really hope Phoebe hasn't just undone every thing."

Paige smiled warmly at Piper as Leo went to answer the phone.

"It's good to have you back with us in the land of the living." Paige said before realising how cruel the comment she had just made was. "I …. Um…….. Err ………….. Didn't mean to say that Piper. I….. I …..I'm sorry."

Piper drew her knees up to her chest and glanced over at her husband still a little wary of Paige.

She didn't feel interlay comfortable being quite so alone with this new woman, her new baby sister.

"You have no idea how stupid I feel right now." Paige said. "I'm not usually this insensitive. I'm just nervous."

Piper shifted awkwardly, determined not to cry in front of her.

Paige was making Piper feel uncomfortable and she knew it. She filled the awkward silence between them with nervous giggling.

Piper shot Leo a look that pleaded with him to help her but he was distracted on the phone and didn't notice.

"Phoebe tells me you like cooking." Paige said.

Piper shrugged off the comment drawing her self in a little more.

She didn't know Paige, she was tired, she wanted her husband's comfort and wasn't in any way ready to welcome Paige into her life. Paige was being bright a bubbly and over powering. Paige with caffeine would be a dangerous combination.

"Do you miss Prue?"

Piper closed her eyes at the question Paige had asked, sending her hurtling head first in to a wall of pain. One she didn't want to discus with any one. Especially Paige.

Paige looked over to Leo to see him watching them.

He turned away from them sighing at what he saw.

She felt horribly cold and guilty. She was upsetting Piper and making maters worse than they already. She felt tears begin to burn the back of her eyes. She'd ruined her parents' lives and now she was ruining Piper's life and her marriage to Leo. She didn't deserve to be accepted into this family, not that she would ever actually be accepted by them. She was only a bad replacement for Prue.

Phoebe was now beyond pissed.

She had gone way past that. She had hit boiling point and there was no coming back from that. All she saw was red.

She kicked the wall of the small cell where she'd been locked up.

"Stupid Darryl," She muttered. "Stupid witchy life style. Stupid powers. Stupid elders. Stupid traffic cop."

Well at least she'd been able to sort him and his cocky buddies out.

The pigs.

"Phoebe stole my car!" Paige yelled as Leo visibly cringed.

He'd asked Paige to come out in to the kitchen for a quick word, doing a very risky thing and leaving Piper alone, but it wouldn't do her any good to hear this.

"Well she took it." Leo said. "But she had the keys, so it's more like she borrowed it for a little while."

"I'll kill her! I'll kill that witch!"

"Sisters share." Leo suggested.

"Not with my car they don't!"

"Paige every action you make is going to have a consequence."

"I'm past caring now Leo. I'm going to get a cab, which Phoebe will be paying for, get my car and tell that ex-sister of mine exactly what I think of her."

This wasn't going to be good for Piper.

Paige stormed off out the mannor.

"Hey." Leo walked back into the living room and wrapped his arms around a some what silent Piper; she didn't want to talk any more. "Your sisters are going to be the death of me one of these days." He sighed pulling her closer. "Or each other."


End file.
